Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Third time’s a charm, or something like that

Yesterday morning was an early start for a Saturday as me and mother dearest was making us ready to hit the road for a third consecutive 100k bike session in the city of Motala. This is how fab you look before you start biking;

As we were driving up there from the summerhouse the rain was pouring down, not a good outlook at all. It managed to stop in time for our arrival and start, however not long after the sky opened up again. It wasn’t a gentle sommer rain that came down oh no, the sky totally opened up and to make things even better the weather gods threw some hail and thunder in there too. It felt like the rain bit my skin and it did so for about the first 10k’s. I can no understand why water torture is so efficient, I know I would have done or said anything to make it stop. Luckily it did stop and the sun came out so by the first stop after 31k I was almost dry again and felt a bit better.

The second leg of the race starts with the steep hill from hell, where most people need to get of and walk. When you think you reached the top of the hill you head around a corner just to face more hill, and more and more, then! Finally! There’s the downhill amazing ride in beautiful surroundings, my favorite part of the track as well as the shortest.

At this time we have reached and passed the halfway point and even though I struggled I was still feeling pretty fresh. The third leg of the track is flat and quite boring and the struggles started for real. My knees, back and shoulders were all hurting at this point, much more than they have previous years. I also forgot to have the bike serviced the last time I was in Gotham, thus it wasn’t in the best mood or much of assistance. The downside with struggling is that it takes longer to get from point A to B and when we finally reached the last stop before goal I wasn’t fresh at all!

Last leg my thighs also started burning and it was a struggle, for me at least, mother dearest wasn’t even tired when we reached goal. I was!

Still, I got my medal.

And after a nice meal I felt a lot better.

Will we do it again? Before the race we said three times is enough, after the race we saw that you get a special medal for five years…only two to go…